


Conversations Imagined and Unsaid

by bloodpopsicles



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, might as well be a poem tbh, very short very sad convo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 12:15:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11532024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodpopsicles/pseuds/bloodpopsicles
Summary: Mac and Dennis are a few years younger, knee deep in a wasted night, when Dennis finally asks: why the gay issue? Very short prose poem exploring the dynamics between two assholes who find kindness for an hour after midnight.





	Conversations Imagined and Unsaid

They were drunk when it started, more drunk than usual. This was years ago, back when intoxication came easier, rather than steady as breathing. They were younger and brighter in the eyes, lighter than the cumulative weight of beer bottles and vodka-ice from years of alcohol ambitions. On Everclear and Jack, respectively, they were drunk when it started. 

“Why the gay shit, dude?”

Mac choked mid-swallow, the amber spice burning into his nasal cavity, eyes pricking wet. “What the fuck?” he answered breathless. “You calling me queer?”

Dennis rolled his eyes with a woozy ease. Gone to the point where every joint felt lubricated and every movement smooth. “No, asshole. That’s exactly what I’m saying! Jesus, it’s like…” His tongue felt loose and liquid in his mouth, twisting around the words like spilled cherries from the bar. 

“Why do gay guys bother you so much?”

Mac blinked as the question stumbled through the air like a 3 day drunk, until the words kissed him like a punch to the mouth. 

“Because god says! Because the Bible.” Obvious, really, although Mac could feel his throat tighten and for once it wasn’t the whiskey.

Dennis cocked an eyebrow, his bloodshot gaze boring holes. “God says a lot of things. I mean, I’m no expert, but I doubt god would be a huge fucking fan of getting wasted every night and boosting cars and fucking whatever boring ugly chick you can get your dick in…” He faded but the weight of unsaid sins hung heavy as the joint smoke between them. “You do things worse than sucking dick on the daily.”

“Yeah but like--” Mac blinked away the doubt, once, twice. “But I was forgiven.”

“But you keep doing it!" Dennis answered, allowing in his intoxication an incredulity. “If you keep doing it forgiveness means jack shit.” 

These are things he never said. In daylight he dismissed stigmatic hypocrisy with an eyeroll and a set jaw, holding his frustration hard between his teeth so not to escape. But tonight it was open mouth, enter liquid courage, and exit black vampire bats. Tonight, he felt his eyes go red, and he asked. “So again. Why is two guys fucking the hill you want to die on?”

Mac didn’t feel like answering. Instead he picked at the soggy label soft with condensation, stuffing the pulp under his dirty nails till it hurt. “It’s just worse somehow.”

Glass down. Leg uncrossed. Lean forward. “How.”

Dennis swelled and didn’t waver. He knew what cruelty felt like, he did it every day. But this was cleaner, ever clear, just naked curiosity. He watched Mac squirm and took his pleasure, but mostly he just wanted reasons. But meanness was hard to exorcise, especially when it made a home in you for years.

Mac leveled a stare at his best friend, his accomplice. Brow furrowed, but not in anger. For once neither of them were angry. Somehow 12 drinks deep they reached a lawless place where they didn’t have to lie. Where the exhaustive dance of expectations and sick worry fades into cigarette smoke, stubbed out on the sticky wood of the bar. 

He couldn’t have stood if he wanted to, but Mac spoke as sober as he had ever. “You know how.”

Dennis stared back, his eyes narrow like closing blinds. The ghost of a smile danced across his alcohol-slick mouth. He wasn’t laughing, he wasn’t readying some verbal sucker punch to deploy soon as the air went quiet. Saying nothing, he glanced down at the glass which looked like three glasses, nodding as they danced kaleidoscopic. 

Mac felt naked and flayed under the low lights and low roof, his head filled with cotton and his tongue too swollen as he watched Dennis nod.

“Yeah, man… I think I do.”

These are things they never said, at least according to memory. They stumbled awake drowsy and heads throbbing tomorrow, made each other coffee over familiar hate speech. These are things they never said again. But the words seemed to soak into floorboards and peer down from the rafters, remembering. Never unsaid. The reverberations stayed lodged in the boys’ throats, and every now and then their eyes softened and voices quieted and they tasted Everclear and Jack.


End file.
